1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to technology for facilitating communication of geospatial data.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, the proliferation of networked computing systems and the Internet has greatly expanded the methods in which users can communicate with each other. Such technology has improved the ability of users to transfer information and data through increasingly convenient ways.
Unfortunately, existing data communication methods and systems often fail to provide sufficient flexibility and efficiency for communicating and exchanging certain types of data. Notably, existing data systems and related methods do not always efficiently manage the communication of geospatial data. Due to the large amounts of geospatial data required to perform meaningful analysis, the communication of such data over networks can consume large amounts of bandwidth, thereby reducing the efficiency of such communication.
Moreover, geospatial data often must be updated in real-time to ensure that users of the data are provided with an accurate and representation of critical information. Nevertheless, existing methods and systems for providing geospatial data do not always provide such updated data in an efficient manner. It can be impractical for users to download large amounts of data, and then be forced to re-download such data when only a portion or attribute of the total data has changed.
In addition, users of geospatial may wish to share data with each other. However, it can be difficult to discuss such shared data when users are located remotely from each other. For example, although it may be possible for users to exchange email messages and conduct teleconferences when discussing the shared data, such communication methods may not necessarily allow users to fully understand each other's comments in the context of the shared data. Differing security permissions between users can further complicate the ability for users to access the same data.
As such, there exists a need for an improved way of facilitating the communication and user collaboration of geospatial data.